Platform Compliance Map Resources Team Contact Request a walkthrough

Resources / One-party consent, state by state

Field guide

One-party consent, state by state.

Which states let a caller record the call, which require everyone on it to agree, and what that means for a dealership in 2026. Every state and DC, in plain language, with the statute behind each one.

Updated July 2026 All 50 states + DC Sourced from statutes and public enforcement records

The rule

One person on the call, or everyone on it.

Every phone call into your store is governed by a recording-consent law. The question each state answers is simple: who has to agree before the call can be recorded?

One-party means one participant is enough. The caller is a participant. If they consent to their own recording, it is legal, and no one else has to know.
All-party means every person on the call must agree before it can be recorded. One missing yes makes the recording unlawful.
The federal floor is one-party, set by the Wiretap Act, 18 U.S.C. § 2511. States can be stricter than the floor. They cannot be looser.

The customer on the phone with your salesperson is always a party to that call. In 37 states and DC, their consent alone makes the recording legal.

Two panels showing the same recorded phone call between a shopper and a salesperson. In a one-party state the shopper's own consent makes it legal. In an all-party state everyone must agree, so the shop runs without recording.

The split

Most of the country is one-party.

Thirty-seven states and the District of Columbia follow the one-party rule. Thirteen states require everyone on the call to agree. Two states do not read the way their statutes suggest, and they trip people up.

Michigan reads one-party

The statute says all-party, but Michigan courts recognize a participant exception (Sullivan v. Gray, reaffirmed federally in 2026). A person on the call may lawfully record it.

Mich. Comp. Laws § 750.539c

Nevada reads all-party

The statute says one-party, but the Nevada Supreme Court has been read to require all-party consent for phone calls. The safe reading is all-party.

Nev. Rev. Stat. § 200.620

A donut chart of 51 jurisdictions: 37 states plus DC are one-party, 13 states are all-party.

Find your state

Tap where your rooftops are.

Amber states are one-party. Blue states are all-party. Tap any state for its rule, its enforcement level, and what a mystery shop covers there.

One-party All-party DC is one-party
STATE

Pick a state

Recording rule·
Enforcement·
On the record·
A shop covers·
See the full detail on the map

What it changes

The rule decides one thing: whether the call is on tape.

Consent law governs recording a call. It does not touch a text, an email, or a web form, because those write their own record. So a store can be shopped anywhere. What changes by state is the phone.

In a one-party state, a shop covers voice, text, email, and web form, and the calls are recorded and scored word for word.
In an all-party state, a shop covers text, email, and web form. Voice is excluded, because the call cannot be recorded there.
Either way, remember the other side of it: your customers live under the same rule. In a one-party state, any caller can already be recording your people, legally, today.
Two columns comparing what a mystery shop covers. One-party state: recorded voice, text, email, and web form. All-party state: text, email, and web form, with voice excluded because the call cannot be recorded.

State by state

All 50 states and DC, one table.

The recording rule, what a mystery shop covers, and the enforcement picture in each state. The four marked states carry a wrinkle worth reading in the footnotes.

StateRecording ruleA shop coversEnforcement
AlabamaOne-partyVoice, text, email, webFederal floor only
AlaskaOne-partyVoice, text, email, webFederal floor only
ArizonaOne-partyVoice, text, email, webFederal floor only
ArkansasOne-partyVoice, text, email, webFederal floor only
CaliforniaAll-partyText, email, webActive · CARS Act (SB 766) · in force Oct 1 2026
ColoradoOne-partyVoice, text, email, webFederal floor only
ConnecticutAll-party ‡Text, email, webActive · Manchester City Nissan · Connecticut AG
DelawareAll-partyText, email, webFederal floor only
District of ColumbiaOne-partyVoice, text, email, webFederal floor only
FloridaAll-partyText, email, webFederal floor only
GeorgiaOne-partyVoice, text, email, webFederal floor only
HawaiiOne-partyVoice, text, email, webFederal floor only
IdahoOne-partyVoice, text, email, webFederal floor only
IllinoisAll-partyText, email, webActive · Leader Automotive · $20M · Illinois AG
IndianaOne-partyVoice, text, email, webFederal floor only
IowaOne-partyVoice, text, email, webFederal floor only
KansasOne-partyVoice, text, email, webFederal floor only
KentuckyOne-partyVoice, text, email, webFederal floor only
LouisianaOne-partyVoice, text, email, webFederal floor only
MaineOne-partyVoice, text, email, webFederal floor only
MarylandAll-partyText, email, webActive · Lindsay settlement · Maryland AG
MassachusettsAll-partyText, email, webFederal floor only
MichiganOne-party *Voice, text, email, webFederal floor only
MinnesotaOne-partyVoice, text, email, webFederal floor only
MississippiOne-partyVoice, text, email, webFederal floor only
MissouriOne-partyVoice, text, email, webFederal floor only
MontanaAll-partyText, email, webFederal floor only
NebraskaOne-partyVoice, text, email, webFederal floor only
NevadaAll-party †Text, email, webFederal floor only
New HampshireAll-partyText, email, webFederal floor only
New JerseyOne-partyVoice, text, email, webFederal floor only
New MexicoOne-partyVoice, text, email, webFederal floor only
New YorkOne-partyVoice, text, email, webActive · FAIR Business Practices Act
North CarolinaOne-partyVoice, text, email, webFederal floor only
North DakotaOne-partyVoice, text, email, webFederal floor only
OhioOne-partyVoice, text, email, webFederal floor only
OklahomaOne-partyVoice, text, email, webFederal floor only
OregonAll-party §Text, email, webFederal floor only
PennsylvaniaAll-partyText, email, webFederal floor only
Rhode IslandOne-partyVoice, text, email, webFederal floor only
South CarolinaOne-partyVoice, text, email, webFederal floor only
South DakotaOne-partyVoice, text, email, webFederal floor only
TennesseeOne-partyVoice, text, email, webFederal floor only
TexasOne-partyVoice, text, email, webActive · Asbury (David McDavid) · litigated
UtahOne-partyVoice, text, email, webFederal floor only
VermontOne-partyVoice, text, email, webFederal floor only
VirginiaOne-partyVoice, text, email, webActive · Lindsay dealerships · E.D. Va.
WashingtonAll-partyText, email, webFederal floor only
West VirginiaOne-partyVoice, text, email, webFederal floor only
WisconsinOne-partyVoice, text, email, webDocumented · Rhinelander Auto Center · refunds
WyomingOne-partyVoice, text, email, webFederal floor only

* Michigan's statute reads all-party, but its courts recognize a participant exception, so a person on the call may record.   † Nevada's statute reads one-party, but its Supreme Court has been read to require all-party consent for calls.   ‡ Connecticut is all-party for telephone recording under its civil statute; its in-person criminal law reads one-party.   § Oregon is one-party for telephone but all-party for in-person conversation; it is classified all-party as the safe reading.

Why it matters now

Enforcement stopped being theoretical.

The federal CARS Rule was vacated in January 2025, and enforcement did not slow down. It moved to FTC Act Section 5 and to the states, and 2026 has been the busiest stretch on record.

March 13, 2026: the FTC sent warning letters to 97 dealer groups nationwide over deceptive pricing, in one day.
April 2026: the FTC and the Maryland AG settled with Lindsay Automotive for a $3.1M civil penalty and more than $75M in consumer restitution, with executives named personally.
The penalty math: FTC civil penalties run up to $53,088 per violation, and every mishandled call can be a violation.
The states are moving too: California's CARS Act (SB 766) takes effect October 1, 2026, and New York's FAIR Business Practices Act widens dealer exposure beyond deception.

The overlap to watch: states where enforcement is active and a caller can legally record. In New York, Texas, and Virginia, the regulator is awake and the evidence is easy to make.

A chart of enforcement bands. Highest exposure where enforcement is active and calls are recordable: New York, Texas, Virginia. Elevated where enforcement is active without recorded calls: California, Connecticut, Illinois, Maryland, plus Wisconsin with documented FTC history. Everywhere else sits at the federal baseline.

What to do with this

Three moves for a principal this quarter.

01

Assume the tape is rolling

In a one-party state, any caller can already be recording your people, legally. Train the floor to speak as if every call is on the record, because it may be.

02

Test your own stores first

Hear what your customers hear before a regulator or a plaintiff's lawyer does. A recorded shop of your own rooftops is the cheapest audit you will ever run.

03

Put it on paper

Map every rooftop to its recording rule and its enforcement exposure, and keep the document current. That is a ten-minute exercise on the Compliance Map.

See your states on the map.

The interactive Compliance Map carries the rule, the statute, and the named enforcement action for every state, and it builds a rooftop exposure report you can keep.

Open the Compliance Map Request a walkthrough

Sources and standing caveat

Consent classifications are compiled from state statutes via Recording Law and Nimitai's 2026 survey. Enforcement matters are drawn from public FTC records: the Lindsay settlement, the Leader Automotive judgment, the Asbury complaint, and the March 2026 warning letters.

This guide is a general compliance reference, not legal advice. Recording consent and enforcement exposure change, and the dataset behind this page is under counsel review. Before you rely on a classification for a recorded call, confirm the current rule with your attorney.